Nn Seniors Receive Scholarships

March 24, 1993|By RONNIE CROCKER Daily Press

NEWPORT NEWS — Three Newport News seniors are among 600 black high school students nationwide to receive Achievement Scholarships for college.

No other students from the Hampton Roads area were recognized by the award program, which is conducted by the National Merit Scholarship Corp. Two-thirds of the winners in this round will receive $2,000 grants from the National Achievement Scholarship Program for Outstanding Negro Students; the others will receive annual payments provided by corporations.

The local winners include Carol D. Moore and Adrienne C. Boisson, seniors at Ferguson High, and Clyde R. Alston of Warwick High. For all three, the Achievement Scholarship will supplement other awards.

Boisson, for instance, will attend Spelman College and Georgia Tech in Atlanta under a full scholarship from NASA. She plans to get a chemistry degree from Spelman in three years, then a chemical engineering degree from Tech two years later. In return, she will work summers at NASA Langley.

Her $2,000 annual Achievement Scholarship award from the Eastman Kodak Co. will go toward other school activities, such as the purchase of a computer.

Boisson was elected senior class president at Ferguson and won the school's Miss Mariner pageant. She is in the National Honor Society, the Mayor's Youth Commission and the School Improvement Team. Last summer, she had an internship in a chemistry lab at NASA Langley.

Moore plans to study economics at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. Her $2,000 award will supplement a $10,000 scholarship from the university.

``Every little bit counts,'' said Moore, who, like the other two winners, has always attended Newport News public schools.

At Ferguson, Moore is on the newspaper staff, a member of the National Honor Society and the Spanish Club and belongs to the Students for Brotherhood and Unity Club, a multiracial group that promotes understanding between members of the races. She also is active with the First Baptist Church Jefferson Park.

This fall, Alston will study urban planning at the University of Virginia, which is picking up the tab for all tuition and fees. His Achievement Scholarship is sponsored by Tenneco Inc., the Houston-based firm that owns Newport News Shipbuilding. His father has worked at the shipyard for more than 30 years.

Alston also is active in school activities. He's a member of several honor societies and was voted ``most likely to succeed.'' He plays varsity baseball and was a captain on the Warwick team. He hopes to make Virginia's football team as a walk-on player.